‘And it must go somewhere.’
‘So long as it isn’t locked or sealed off,’ George pointed out.
‘Well, let’s find out shall we? Eddie.’
‘I know, I know.’ He took hold of the ladder and pulled himself up to the first rung, testing it carefully with his foot in case it was ready to give way. ‘I’m the lightest so I get to see if it’s safe.’
‘Good lad.’
‘The question, then,’ George was saying as Eddie hauled himself up the ladder, ‘is what was Glick writing about in that diary? What we have seems meaningless.
‘Maybe he went to a seance with those creepy people,’ Liz said. ‘Saw something in a crystal ball, like Eddie said.’
Eddie had reached the top of the ladder. It ended in a heavy metal grating, and through it he could see the foggy world outside. Poking his fingers up through the grille, he could feel the cold of the night air.
‘Just that one page survived?’ Sir William was asking.
‘Lots of pages survived,’ George replied. ‘But most of them were blank. There can only have been that one entry in that last volume.’
‘You didn’t tell me that,’ Liz said sharply.
‘It’s hardly important.’
Eddie heaved at the grille. He could feel it move slightly. Rust and crumbling cement rained down on his head and he coughed and blinked before trying again.
‘Hardly important?’ Liz echoed. ‘Did it not occur to you that if there was only one entry in that diary, then what Lorimore is after might well be at the end of the previous volume?’
With an almighty effort, Eddie managed to heave the metal grating up and out. He shoved it sideways until there was room to squeeze past and out into the deserted street above.
George’s voice sounded small and quiet as it followed Eddie out of the sewer. ‘I never thought of that.’
Chapter 16
It seemed to Eddie that if there was a job that needed doing and which was important or dangerous, then he was the one who got volunteered to do it. The British Museum was a large building, true. But he was sure he could get inside and be able to find his way to wherever Glick’s surviving diaries were stored. He had offered to climb in through a window or sneak round the back or anything.
But no. George and Sir William and Liz had other ideas. Better ideas. It was all made to seem like a discussion with Eddie as an equal partner. Except he never got his way, while everyone else got theirs.
Which was why Eddie was outside the imposing main entrance to the British Museum, looking round for whoever Lorimore now had watching the place following Berry’s treachery. They weren’t hard to spot. Two of them — Eddie recognised the type. Large men with beer bellies who would knock you down and steal your wallet and your watch as soon as look at you. Not quick, but strong. If they got hold of him he would be in trouble.
Despite himself, Eddie found he was relishing the moment, enjoying himself. The two thugs were standing together on the corner of Museum Street, and since they were together they could not keep an eye on the back of the building. Perhaps there was someone else there. It didn’t matter.
One of the men was smoking a clay pipe. He blew out a stream of smoke that was soon lost in the mist that lingered from the earlier fog. Away from the factories, the air was clearer. They would see Eddie easily. He would make sure of that.
Hands in his trouser pockets, Eddie set off past the main entrance. He paused under a street lamp, making sure his face was in full view for several seconds. Then, bracing himself to run at any second, he walked slowly past the two men.
The man with the pipe was knocking it out against the heel of his hand. He looked up as Eddie passed, watching the boy with a bored expression. The other man glanced across too, to see what his fellow was watching. Now Eddie was close enough to hear them. He held his breath, kept walking slowly past.
‘Reckon it’ll rain tomorrow,’ the man with the pipe said.
‘Never,’ the other man countered. ‘No sign of that.’
The men lapsed into silence again. Eddie sighed and continued on his way. At this rate he reckoned he could probably walk into the Museum, retrieve the diaries, and walk out again without either one of them paying him any heed.
But that wasn’t the plan. So he crossed the road and walked back along, whistling. When he reached the two men, he stopped in front of them. The whistling had disturbed their reverie and they both looked at him, bored. One of them glared at Eddie as if to say: ‘Go on, get out of here.’
Eddie sighed, clearly they weren’t going to realise who he was without help. He dropped his mouth open in an expression of horror and fear. ‘Oh my good God,’ he said loudly.
The men stared at him, mildly surprised at this outburst.
‘Oh my cripes,’ Eddie went on quickly. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the ones Lorimore’s sent to find me, ain’t you?!’
Realisation slowly dawned on the pipe-smoker, and his pipe fell from his fingers and shattered on the pavement.
‘What?’ said the other man, seeing his fellow’s reaction.
But Eddie was already running — not so fast they had no hope of catching him, but fast enough to stay out of reach. He could hear their uneven gasps as they came after him.
And at the other end of the street, two shadows detached themselves from the gloom and made their way unseen towards the entrance to the British Museum.
They went straight to the written archives. George had no idea what had happened to the books that Percy had been working on after the break-in, the fire and his death. But Sir William seemed to know exactly where they would be, having, he explained, returned them there that morning.
The few volumes that had survived were stacked in a cupboard. George recognised the remains of the final volume with its blackened pages and one curled cover. The other cover was missing entirely. They gathered it up together with the half dozen volumes that had survived unscathed, and several more that had been damaged to a greater or lesser extent by the fire.
‘I don’t want to spend too long here,’ Sir William said. ‘The longer we are here, the more of a risk that that scoundrel Berry will clap eyes on us and go running to Lorimore himself.’
George found a Gladstone bag full of pages of a manuscript in the bottom of the cupboard. He took out the loose pages and stacked them on the shelf where the diaries had been. Then he put the diaries into the bag.
‘We don’t want to advertise the fact that we are removing them,’ he said.
Sir William nodded. ‘I suggest we take them all and examine them back at the club.’
They had left Liz at the Atlantian Club. While it only admitted gentlemen as members, and learned ones at that, Sir William was allowed to bring in Liz and the others as guests. The chief steward, Vespers, had shown no trace of surprise at their dishevelled appearance, though his nose wrinkled inadvertently as he got too close.
‘May I suggest a private room for your meeting?’ he had offered, and Sir William had been pleased to agree at once. ‘I’ll see if we have one with a washroom nearby,’ Vespers had promised.
As soon as they approached the club, the door was opened from inside.
‘The young lady is installed in your room, sir,’ Vespers told Sir William. ‘I have taken the liberty of having the chef send up a selection of cold platters. I gather from the young lady that she and the gentleman here have not yet dined.’
‘We were rather busy,’ George said as Vespers led the way through the foyer and to a small door.
‘Back stairs,’ he explained. ‘I gather there is a need for discretion, even here.’
‘I am afraid so, Vespers. Rather tiresome, but unavoidable I fear.’
The stairs were bare polished wood, and emerged from a narrow and inconspicuous door on the first floor of
